This is the latest travel milestone for Stuker, who in July 2011 was the first person to fly 10 million miles on United and United Express. With more than 13 million miles flown, Stuker is one of commercial aviation's highest-mileage travelers. (ir.unitedcontinentalholdings.com) More...

1,000,000 miles @ 500 mph = 2,000 hours of flying. 400 flights (his estimate) means average of 2,500 miles per flight. 400 flights also means 400 hrs in airports preflight and 400 hrs post flight for customs, immigration and baggage or 800 hrs in airports. ( I'll ignore any flight delays) Assume 45 minutes each to/from airports is another 600 hrs for a total of 3,800 hours. That's about 10.5 hours EVERY day of the year just to get to work

Great calculation. My only quibble is that you should assume that 50% of the trips involve a connection rather than having to head to the airport, go through security, etc. Also, I think 1hr to leave the airport is a bit high; if you've got Global Entry, it's <10 minutes from airplane to street.

I am not sure that all those miles were FLOWN. Perhaps he earned some miles from other activities like car rentals, online purchases, and just plain using credit cards.Otherwise it would be preety hard to accumulate all those miles in the eleven months in question.

I have 1.7 million on AA and that took me over 10 years to reach. I can't imagine doing a million in 1 year. I love to fly and do a lot of business and pleasure flying but THAT sounds like torture to me. Even in 1st class!

Well assuming 20,000 RT from USA-Australia every week, you'd get 1mil+ miles in 52 weeks. If i had money to burn id do it. assume $2000 RTx52 thats about $100,000/yr flying. Invest $400,000 to get 4mil miles, then you're global services for life. Is it worth it? meh that has yet to be seen.

Andrea, exactly! He was getting a free ride! Thanks to the "Mileage Plus Program"!! Companies have a way to work the system with the airlines. Which, in my opinion, is one of the downfalls of the airline industry! They are giving tickets away...therefore losing revenue. Never did I think it would work to make the airline productive. Therefore, the airlines are going bankrupt, merging...cutting employee paychecks, retirement, medical...just to keep their nose above water! When I started flying in 1972, management put a lot of incentives to get people to fly. It worked for awhile and then, I feel, it got out of control. Now, the employees and the passengers are suffering. Management is getting their "Golden Parachute"...good to go and they will "BAIL", with "Mega Millions"! All the airlines, all the employees took a hit to safe their company because they cared and they were proud to work and wear that uniform. Now it's all about greed. Yes, we will only have 3 to 4 major airlines in the US of A. Sad but true! I'm greatful and proud that I flew when it was fun to fly!

And if I may add...in 30 years, I put in 747,180 miles with and emergency here and there and the biggie was in Toronto when we lost #2 engine at 500 feet on a DC-10 on take off! All I can say about thatis that, "I walk away from anyother one"!!! But we got a full load out on the slides in less that 60 secs and the whole crew did what they were trained to do. I am a very proud United Retired Employee!!!

agg1930...Yes but when #2 engine blows, like it did with United 232, all of the hydraulics failed! Fortunately, after that, they re-routed the the hydraulic system so it wouldn't happen again. We blew #2 but it didn't sever the hydraulic lines ...therefore...yes we flew with #1 and #3...Leveled her out and went around back to Toronto. Crew knew we blew #2 but we had a fire in #2 and it didn't register in the cockpit as a engine fire. We also had a fire in the Wheel Well. We were notified of the fire by the tower and appoaching aircraft. We went around and landed safely. We were foamed and the captain initiated the evac! Therefore we did what we were trained to do. I told my story to the United Training Center in Denver for 5 years to educate crew members, if in fact this incident would ever happen again. Thankyou it didn't because we resolved the problem after UAL232.

I see now that it was a lot more than just "loosing #2" Thank you for all the details. In all my flying days I only experienced two flights where we "lost an engine" but it was just a case of loosing power for reasons not as critical as having the engine blow up. Thanks again for your very detailed reply.

You are so welcome! If I can educate "flight crew members", I will do that. The DC-10 was a hurry up production to compete with the L-1011. And the L-1011 didn't last very long! Merry Christmas, agg1930!

United's Top Passenger Tom Stuker Reaches 1 Million Miles In A Calendar Year

Has Flown Over 13 Million Miles With The Airline

Talk about your customer loyalty. United Airlines' most frequent flyer, Tom Stuker, this month became the first United customer to fly one million miles on United and United Express in a calendar year, reaching the mark on Dec. 6 onboard United flight 949 between London and Chicago.